Yanomami Indians
'Yanomami' means 'Human
Being'
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The Yanomami are an indigenous tribe (also
called Yanamamo, Yanomam, and Sanuma)
made up of four subdivisions of Indians which
live in the tropical rain forest of Southern
Venezuela and Northern Brazil.
 Each subdivision has its own language.
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They include the Sanema which live in the Northern
Sector, the Ninam which live in the southeastern
sector, the Yanomam which live in the southeastern
part and the Yanomamo which live in the
southwestern part of Yanomami area.
Of the approximately 20,000 Yanomami alive
today, about 12,000 of these are Yanomamo.
Yanomami Territory
Villages
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The Yanomami live in about hundreds of small villages,
grouped by families in one large communal dwelling
called a Shabono; this disc-shaped structure with an
open-air central plaza is an earthly version of their gods'
abode.
They hunt and fish over a wide range and tend gardens
in harmony with the forest.
Villages are autonomous but constantly will interact with
each other.
The villages, which contain between 40 and 300
individuals, are scattered thinly throughout the Amazon
Forest.
The distance between villages may vary from a few
hours walk to a ten day walk.
Shabono
Approximately 120 meters across
Warfare
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Though many Yanomami are peace, many are fierce
warriors. Sometimes their warring is to capture women, so
that their best warriors can maximize their reproductive
success.
 In general, warring villages are usually several days walk
from each other, where as tranquil ones may be less than
a day. Villages will usually fission when the population
reaches 100 to 150 people but in times of warfare villages
will not split before they reach a population of around 300
individuals.
 Villages may go to war for a number of reasons and
warfare makes up a large part of Yanomami life.
 About 40% of adult males have killed another person and
about 25% of adult males will die from some form of
violence. Violence will vary from chest pounding, in which
opponents take turns hitting each others on the chest, to
club fights, to raids which may involve the killing of
individuals and abducting the women, to all out warfare.
Warriors
Spiritual Beliefs
 The
Yanomami people's traditions are
shaped by the belief that the natural and
spiritual world are a unified force; nature
creates everything, and is sacred.
 They believe that their fate, and the fate of
all people, is inescapably linked to the fate
of the environment; with its destruction,
humanity is committing suicide.
 Their spiritual leader is a shaman.
Marriage
 Marriage
arrangements are not only vital
in forging alliances but keeping the peace
between families as well.
 Most women have prearranged marriages
and marry at a young age.
 The preferred marriage is the "bilateral
cross-cousin marriage" which helps
produce strong relationships between
families and villages.
Families
Forest People (Hunters) - River
People (Fishing)
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Today about 95% of the Yanomami live deep
within the Amazon forest as compared to the 5%
who live along the major rivers.
 Compared to the "forest people," the "river
people" are much more sedentary and subsist
by fishing and trading goods such as canoes
and hooks with other villages.
 The "forest people" are horticulturists as well as
hunters and gathers.
Gardens
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They will spend up to two hours of their day "garden
farming" which is quite a labor intensive process. Some
of the crops grown include sweet potatoes, bananas,
sugar cane and tobacco. However as horticulturists the
Yanomami do not get sufficient protein from their crops.
Therefore the Yanomami will spend as much as 60% of
their time trekking.
Men usually make up the hunters and the women the
gathers. Men will go on long distant hunts that may last
up to a week. The fact that just about all of the
Yanomami live deep within the forest has been quite
significant for their survival.
Since most outsiders have invaded the Amazon via the
large rivers, the Yanomami have been able to live in
isolation until very recently. Because of this they have
been able to retain their culture and their identity which
many Indians of the Amazon have lost.
1980's - The Gold Rush
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The Yanomami had very little contact with the outside
world until the 1980's.
Since 1987, the Yanomami have seen about 10% of their
entire population - over 2,000 people - decimated by
massacres and diseases brought by invaders.
The Yanomamo is the most well known and best
documented of the four division partly because they
have been victims of a recent gold rush.
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After gold was discovered on Yanomami land in the mid-1980's,
thousands of miners illegally rushed into the territory.
The constant flights of supply planes and the noise from
generators and pumps used in the mining operation has
frightened away the game animals the Indians rely on as a key
source of protein in their diet.
High pressure hoses are used to wash away river banks, silting
the rivers and destroying spawning grounds.
Problems
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Mercury is used to separate the gold from soil and rock.
It is then dumped in the rivers haphazardly.
Mercury bio-accumulates and reeks havoc on the entire
ecosystem.
The effects of mercury poisoning reach even the
surrounding trees, some of which rely on birds and fish
to disperse their seeds.
The mercury ascends the food chain up to the
Yanomami in the form of a neurotoxin that especially
affects child development.
The most devastating statistic of them all: child mortality
rates have skyrocketed while birth rates have declined.
Government Involvement
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In 1992, the Yanomami Territory was demarcated and ratified,
yet the government has not consistently kept its commitment
to protect their land.
Supported by politicians and business people, the gold miners
assault escalated. In July 1993, a group of miners tried to
exterminate the village of Haximu, killing 16 Yanomami, in
what Brazilian Attorney General Aristides Junqueira classified
as genocide. Despite international outcry spurred by the
massacre, miners continue to enter the territory illegally.
According to the Commission for the Creation of the
Yanomami Park (CCPY) in Sao Paulo and the Indianist
Missionary Council (CIMI) in Brasilia, state and local
politicians are fighting to reduce the Yanomami territory
because they want access to its rich mineral deposits.
There is little question that if this happens, the gold
prospectors will be replaced by large scale commercial mining
operations that will only compound the devastation of the
Yanomami and the rainforest.
Other Problems
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In the 1960s anthropologist Napoleon
Chagnon’s accounts of his life among
Venezuela’s Yanomami Indians made them—
and him—famous.
 By the early 1990s, however, a growing number
of critics were charging him with misconduct,
and protests from government officials and
activists made it impossible for him to secure a
permit to Venezuela after 1993.
Darkness in El Dorado
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The charges stemmed from Chagnon’s allegedly culturedestroying practice of exchanging trade goods such as
machetes with the Yanomami for delicate cultural
information, including family genealogies (the Yanomami
consider it taboo to speak of the dead).
In 2000 native-rights activist Patrick Tierney detailed the
anti-Chagnon case in his book Darkness in El Dorado.
Just days after it was published, the Venezuelan
government sealed off Yanomami territory to outside
journalists, researchers, and scientists; banned Chagnon
from the region; and began their own investigation into
the conditions of the Yanomami and the supposed
damage done by outsiders.
AA findings
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The American Anthropological Association released the
final report of a panel charged with reviewing accusations
of unethical behavior by prominent anthropologists who
studied the Yanomami people in the Amazon River basin in
the late 1960s. Alongside its factual dissections, in which it
criticizes both the accused anthropologists and their
accuser, the 304-page report contains reflective essays that
are intended to improve ethical practices among
anthropologists who work with indigenous communities.
Patrick Tierney's 2000 book, Darkness in El Dorado, (W.W.
Norton) revolved around anthropologists' work among the
Yanomami, an indigenous ethnic group in remote areas of
Brazil and Venezuela. Mr. Tierney charged that during the
late 1960s, Napoleon Chagnon, now a professor emeritus
of anthropology at the University of California at Santa
Barbara, and the late James V. Neel, a longtime professor
of human genetics at the University of Michigan at Ann
Arbor, had recklessly endangered the communities they
studied.
Continued
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Among the most serious accusations: that Mr. Chagnon
had subtly encouraged murderous violence among the
Yanomami, and that Mr. Neel's efforts to administer
measles vaccines among the Yanomami were driven
more by scientific curiosity than by sound medical
practice.
Critics of Mr. Tierney's book have strongly denied these
charges, and two previous reports -- by the American
Society of Human Genetics and the University of
California at Santa Barbara -- have found the accusations
to be unwarranted.
In a short preface to the report, the association's
executive board declares that Mr. Tierney's book
"contains numerous unfounded, misrepresented, and
sensationalistic accusations about the conduct of
anthropology among the Yanomami." But the report also
says that the book, though "deeply flawed ... [presents]
ethical issues that we must confront."